Where did the octal/hex notations come from?

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After all of this time, I've never thought to ask this question; I understand this came from c++, but what was the reasoning behind it:

  • Specify decimal numbers as you normally would
  • Specify octal numbers by a leading 0
  • Specify hexadecimal numbers by a leading 0x

Why 0? Why 0x? Is there a natural progression for base-32?

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